Real life pilot training.

[m10bob]

I play against the AI in my games so nobody gets hurt with my play.

I like to replicate real history when possible, and for me that includes using training planes to train the pilots.
Stock WITP-AE gives us pilots early in the war with experience values in the twenties and thirties (U.S.A.), but IMHO this is wrong because before the war, the U.S. started a civilian pilot training program which at least quadrupled the number of active pilots in just two years.
In game, we are given these untrained pilots, and they are put into nice sleek front line fighters and some of the "slow to arrive" bombing planes which are needed at the front NOW!

Using the editor, I created more training planes by using C45's for bomber trainers and copy/pasting Stearmans and SNJ's for the branches of service.
IRL, there were "scads" of other planes used, but that is just chrome which is not needed but for the purists.

The Japanese have the Willow, and the "Ann" and "Mary" might also be used in the training role.

I suggest each nation be given trainers to build up the pilots experience, and free those front line machines for where they are needed.

New Zealand used 4 engined De Havilland "Express" planes(looks like Dragon Rapide) for transport and trainer.
They also put wing racks on them for maritime duties against Japanese subs.
RNZAF used them in #2, #4, and #42 squadrons.

They and Australia also used the SNJ Harvards,(art already in game) for fighter and bomber training, along with Airspeed Oxfords and Hawker Hinds,(Audax art will work)...

[btd64]

Most of the scenario's I play at this point have the training squadrons the John3rd put into RA. At least I think it was John. And Para has added more training squadrons to FP....GP

[jcjordan]

M10 - I've been working on this type scenario myself to give more on map training since the exp settings of Allied pilots is under par vs history. For the RAF/CW types I was going to use their historical type of OTU using some kind of a/c based on future role & for US types a little more generic of just having a group/wing sized unit for their future role. I've been able to track down many of the units that were for the final combat prep type training for pilots. If interested, I'll see if I can dig up my notebook info & put it together into a useful format.

[Big B]

Bob, in one scenario I did, I made available to the USMC, USN, and USAAF about 120 AT-6's each (out of the thousands of North American AT-6 Texans built and used as trainers during the war).

This allowed state-side squadrons in the game to switch out aircraft and train pilots...one AT-6 variant I made was designated level bomber for training bomber pilots.

The result was phenomenal - too phenomenal perhaps for PBEM - they trained high quality pilots by the hundreds in 5 or 6 months, building up a huge highly trained pilot pool by July '42.

It's probably pretty historically accurate - the US trained well over 100,000 pilots with 2,000+ hours of flying time - a great many of which never got overseas to any theater (I knew one of them).

However, I decided not to include them in any standard scenario mod I publish online.... the war would end in mid-43 I'm thinking - with that much reserve in this game.

[el cid again]

Generally speaking, RHS has almost every possible trainer (and transport) - and some kind of
art for them (sometimes photographs or digitized images modified from photographs). As well,
performance data has been extensively researched. You may 'steal' any which are of use.
J.F. Dunnigan, when he was head of Simulations Publications (SPI), once wrote that "a good
designer shamelessly steals from other game designs." Presumably so do good modders. Note
that there was once a common art project for major AE mods - and to the extent this made
art available - we have it in the RHS air art set.

As for training units, the intended system (for the Japanese) ultimately was not perfected,
so it isn't in stock. But it kind of works. Just realize that it wants to train pilots up
to a high level - you don't really hand them off from basic trainers to intermediate trainers
to advanced trainers to type trainers as IRL. So the RHS plane set substituted intermediate
trainers and crew trainers for all - and you "release pilots" when they become well trained
directly into the pilot pools. Training units can be used effectively if you understand this.

[m10bob]

It is very encouraging to see my learned friends have been thinking the same things I have regarding the training of pilots.

OT but a story I want to share.

My dad was working a turret lathe and drill presses at Allison, making engines for the P 39 and P 40 aircraft prior to Pearl Harbor. Was making great money, was single, and driving one of those big black 1937 Cadillacs with the spare tires on both front fenders.
Had it made, but when the attack happened, everybody was enlisting.
Dad enlisted in The Army Air Corps and went to Kelly Field to train on PT 19's.
As Eric Bergerud has noted in his book FIRE IN THE SKY, many good pilots "washed out" for about the first year for minor things.
Dad washed out and was sent to Cimmaron Field in Oklahoma to teach judo to other candidates.
Bored out of his mind, he applied for, and was accepted to OCS at Ft Benning Ga.
Once commissioned as a "butter bar", he was assigned to the 29th I.D., then heading for Europe.
Serving with HHC, 116th RCT, he was in the first wave at Omaha Beach.
He is mentioned in Joseph Balkoski's books about that unit and served well in that war and later, in Korea.

He was my military mentor, and the reason I had to be a Ranger.

None of this would have been realized, had he not "washed out" as a pilot.